


an understanding

by thatlesbianxoxo



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Short One Shot, Sierra Madre (Fallout)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:34:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26773717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatlesbianxoxo/pseuds/thatlesbianxoxo
Summary: Courier Magdalena talks about her current situation





	an understanding

Quiet. Finally quiet. 

The Madre hadn't been quiet since she first woke up here, always buzzing with too much activity for a seemingly dead city. The ghost people, her "companions", the steady beeping of her collar when she neared a radio. 

Her neck itches, and she digs a finger under the metal of the collar, cranes her neck to try to make room so she can scratch. 

The woman- no, not "the woman". Christine. Magdalena had put two and two together, this woman and Elijah in the Sierra Madre, one chasing the other through the desert, only to end up trapped, here in a dead city. She played one of the tapes from the Big Empty, the one where she wakes from an experiment.

"This is you." She'd said, hadn't bothered posing it as a question. Christine had paused a moment, listened to the sound of her own voice speaking her name, and nodded.

In the present, Christine frowns at her, tilts her head to the side. Magdalena clears her throat, winces at the raw pain as she swallows.

"I'm good." She says, her voice low and rough. "Just ready to get this damn thing off."

Christine nods, points back at herself with her thumb and her pinky extended. Me too. 

"Yeah, I bet." Magdalena mumbles, stretches as she stands and opens the door out into the city.

The metallic smell of the Cloud hangs over the Villa, even in areas clear of the poisonous fog. Really, no where is completely safe from it. It's everywhere, in the air and the food and the water. It's just a matter of trying to take in as little of it as possible, avoiding the areas thick and choking with it.

There's a noise, shuffling of feet on the stone streets, and lurching breath echoing out of a gas mask. Magdalena's breath catches in her throat as a ghost person shambles out into the open, knife spear in hand, dragging a leg behind it as if injured. 

She watches it for a moment longer, through a crack in the door a little over an inch wide. It swings its head left and right, its breath gurgling out of the mask, low and labored. The sound of it sends a shiver down her spine, and she silently closes the door.

They'd hunkered down in the Villa's police station for the past two hours, taking a much needed break from the fight outside. 

They took turns trying to sleep on the bed in one of the jail cells, though they both found it hard to get more than about a half hours sleep each. Christine didn't seem to enjoy being indoors for too long, and when she slept she tossed and turned, made distressed noises in the back of her throat.

Magdalena tried to sleep, too, but as sleep would overtake her the collar around her throat would tighten. Her dreams were filled with old, fuzzy memories from before she was shot, tinged with red. Christine would wake her up, hands on her mouth to muffle her screams.

Now they sit together outside the jail cells, side by side, Christine watching the door, Magdalena watching the jail cell behind them. The one that had held Dog/God. 

They frighten her. She'd never admit it, but it's the truth. She fears Their strength, and she fears what They represent. If Elijah changes his mind, decides they'd all be better off as his lackeys after all this is done, there would be nothing to stop him.

They would not get out of that situation alive, she knows this. One of them will die, and then they all will die, and then they'd be free.

Christine taps on the bars of one of the cells, the sound echoing through the room and jarring her from her thoughts.

She points, then sticks her thumb up and moves her hand in a circle. Are you okay? Magdalena shoots her a pointed look.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Quit checking up on me." Christine rolls her eyes, sits on the desk in the room.

They sit in silence for another few minutes, and Magdalena's gut twinges with guilt.

"I'm sorry for snapping." She says, and Christine looks back at her, raises an eyebrow, "I was just thinking about… about something I don't like to think about."

Christine moves her hand in a motion that tells her to continue, and she bites her bottom lip, nervously peels off a strip of dry skin and tastes blood.

"I know Elijah- men like him, I mean. The Legion is full of them." Christine's gaze softens, and Magdalena looks away, doesn't want to see the pity in her eyes, "When I escaped, I told myself I'd never be collared again, and now I can't stop thinking about what happens if Elijah changes his mind and figures he could do with a couple slaves."

Christine stands, puts a hand on Magdalena's shoulder, and she looks away, at the cage that held Dog/God.

"If that happens," She pauses, swallows hard, "No. I won't let that happen. No matter what."

Magdalena puts a hand on her collar, Christine puts a hand on her own, and Magdalena figures they have an understanding.


End file.
